When the corpse of the shady industrialist who owns the local football team
is found both shot and stabbed with a Parmesan knife, Italian police inspector
Aurelio Zen is called to Bologna to oversee the investigation. Recovering
slowly from surgery, and fleeing an equally painful crisis in his personal
life, Zen is only too happy to take on what at first appears to be a routine
and relatively undemanding assignment. But soon a world-famous university
professor is shot with the same gun, immediately after publicly humiliating
Italy's leading celebrity television chef, and the case - intertwined with the
fates of an earnest student of semiotics and a mysterious young immigrant who
claims to be from Ruritania - spins out of control, and Zen is in no condition
to rise to the challenge. There's also a wild card in the pack, Tony Speranza,
Bologna's most flamboyant private detective. Back to Bologna is dazzlingly
plotted, features a cast of vivid and idiosyncratic characters, and along the
way delivers both comic and serious insights into the realities of today's Italy.